Guidance
FOR the beginning OHS professional
Safety Reflections by
George Robotham
Contents
Introduction
Why read this paper? What will I learn? What is in it for me?
Why have OHS?
Geoff McDonald
Safety Myths
LTIFR
Personal Damage Occurrence Investigation Models
Analysis of “Accident” experience
Access to earthmoving equipment
Critical Incident Recall
George’s Philosophy on Life, Work and Relationships
Background to OHS
Behaviour-Based Safety
Role of the safety professional
Safety incentives
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate
Alternatives to the hierarchy of controls
Young worker safety
Zero harm
Commercial Safety Management Systems
Major mistakes I have seen made in implementing OHS
The toughest safety assignment I have had
How to have an effective safety committee
Common law
Safety Benchmarking
OHS tools for managing safety
Job Safety Analysis
George’s down to earth advice to safety representatives and safety committee members
Risk assessment tips
Accident investigation summary
Auditing OHS systems
Non OHS tools for managing safety
Safety communications
Safety culture
How to improve safety culture
Interpersonal skills
Leadership
Leadership quotes
Military leaders on leadership
OHS Leadership
How to be a safety leader
References
Leadership in safety-Ethics
Leadership in safety-Trust
Learning
OHS Learning
Implementation of a learning management system
The use of Power-Point presentations
Tool box meetings
The use of humour
Safety Induction
Human Resources
Job interviews
The resume
Conclusion
Introduction
In nearly 4 decades of involvement in field, corporate, project and consultant OHS roles I have had the opportunity to learn a variety of things. In this publication I have outlined generally 1-2 page thoughts on safety and safety aligned topics, with the aim of providing some brief guidance to the newly developing OHS professional. I believe I cover a fair bit of relevant ground. Whilst there is a smattering of theory in the following, most is based on practical experience. A strong message is that to be effective in OHS you need competency from other areas, as well as your OHS competencies.
Why read this paper? What will I learn? What is in it for me?
This paper will expose you to the sort of learning about OHS you will be unlikely to find in most tertiary OHS qualifications. It is focused on the real world not theory.
Why have OHS?
The first fatality I was associated with occurred over 30 years ago to a young, vivacious, pleasant female office employee at a mine site. I was the first on the scene and comforted her as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She died the next day, such a waste!
Since then I have assisted my employers manage the aftermath of 12 fatalities and 2 other incidences of permanently life altering personal damage.
There are many reasons to have OHS-
Sure we want to obey the legislation and keep the regulators off our back
Sure we want to have a good company and industry reputation to attract employees
Sure we want to reduce safety related industrial disputation
Sure we want to reduce the financial costs of “accidents”
Sure we want work to be a pleasant place to be
Sure we want a highly skilled workforce
As an OHS professional I have had to deal with the emotional trauma of life altering personal damage and interacted with loved ones and co-workers. For me the prime reason to have OHS is to-
REDUCE PERMANENTLY LIFE ALTERING PERSONAL DAMAGE
This is referred to as Class 1 personal damage and can be fatal and non-fatal. Whilst we rarely get to hear about it the impact of non-fatal class 1 damage is much higher than fatal class 1 damage
I would be the first to say there is a lot of bull-dust associated with implementation of safety initiatives. In my time in safety I have seen companies spend tremendous amounts of time, effort and money on dubious safety programs and get little return for their investment.
The challenge is to design your safety programs so they meet the specific, identified needs of your organization.
Discussion on a Canadian safety forum came to the conclusion that you would be lucky to prevent 20% of your”accidents” if all you did was comply with legislation
I think one of my ex-managers said it well when he said "If you cannot manage safety you cannot manage"
Note
My attempt to give advice on how to achieve my objective can be found in the e-book Safety Management Systems under articles on ohschange.com.au
Geoff McDonald
Geoff has been my coach, mentor, guide and adviser on OHS for in excess of 35 years and is one of the very few consultants on the safety scene who inspire much confidence in me. The following are examples of material I have written guided by Geoff.
Safety Myths
One important factor that influences how OHS is managed is the attitudes and pre-conceptions of those leading the charge. This paper explores beliefs, philosophies, concepts and attitudes and suggests some common ideas may be incorrect or unhelpful, that is they may be myths and misconceptions.
People cause accidents
We would not suggest that people are not essential in personal damage occurrences (Accidents) but the people cause accidents myth and misconception is often used as an excuse for not carrying out positive action. What often happens is we blame the person and forget about making positive changes to the machine and the environment. There are few occasions when it is appropriate to blame the person for their past actions, this is only appropriate when the blame leads to change in the future.
The people cause accidents philosophy has been reinforced in a number of ways over the years.
- Heinrich-Although this belief has been part of our culture for centuries, it received official sanction in the writings of Heinrich, widely held to be the father of the industrial safety movement in the 1930’s.
- His domino theory whereby unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, errors and hazards combine to produce incidents has tended to focus on the person to blame and has been a serious impediment to meaningful progress.
- Legal system-This reflects the belief that people cause accidents.
- Insurance industry-Closely tied in to the legal system, seeks to identify some person to blame and pursue through legal channels for any claim.
- News media-Media scream driver error in motor vehicle incidents; they scream pilot error in aviation incidents without taking account of the other multitude of essential factors.
- Published studies-Many published studies will have you believe 90% of accidents are caused by human error. The reality is all personal damage occurrences will have people essential factors and machine and environment essential factors.
The main aim of safety activities is to prevent accidents
Certainly safety activities aim to prevent personal damage occurrences. However we must take one step further by also seeking to minimise and control damage. A classic example being the wearing of seat belts and fitting R.O.P.S. to tractors.
Look after the pence and the pounds will look after themselves
There is a belief in safety that if you bring controls to bear on all minor injuries then the Lost Time Injuries will look after themselves. This belief has mis-directed effort with the result that inordinate effort is directed at minor incidents that have little potential for more serious damage. Certainly we should prevent minor incidents but remember to concentrate our efforts where we get the best results. The Pareto Effect says 20% of incidents will give 80% of damage. This 20% must be identified and concentrated upon. In Managing Major Hazards Professor Andrew Hopkins outlines how a focus on Lost Time Injuries led to insufficient emphasis on high risk events. Papers are emerging questioning the wisdom of Zero Harm approaches to safety.
It cannot happen to me
There is a need for each and everyone of us to subscribe to this theory, for the sake of our own psychological well-being and to be able to cope with situations outside our control. This belief is often no more than an excuse for taking no action. Often you will wonder why the silly bugger did what they did, sometimes it is because of this belief.
Punishing wrongdoers
I am not saying we should not punish people who do the wrong thing in safety. I am saying that the fact that we do punish wrongdoers will often lead to highly imaginative efforts to avoid punishment and thus make things harder. The history of the safety movement records numerous cases of punishing the wrongdoers not being effective. We should seriously consider the full range of options rather than making hasty decisions to punish the wrongdoers.
W.A.S.P. ethic
This work ethic had its origins in the great religious upheaval know at the Reformation. The ethics emphasis is just reward for effort, conversely people who are hurt in accidents are receiving their just reward for lack of effort. The W.A.S.P. may sidetrack our prevention efforts.
Displacement activities
A displacement activity is something we do, something we put a lot of energy into but when we examine it closely there is no valid reason for doing it. The industrial safety movement reeks of poorly considered displacement activities often marketed by smooth consultants.
Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate is a valid and reliable measure of safety performance
I have personal experience with a company that aggressively drove down L.T.I.F.R. to a fraction of its original rate in a space of about 2 years yet killed 11 people in one incident.
LTIFR
The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate predominates discussions about safety performance. How can a company be proud of a decrease of L.T.I.F.R. from 60 to 10 if there have been 2 fatalities and 1 case of paraplegia amongst the lost time injuries? The L.T.I.F.R. trivialises serious personal damage and is a totally inappropriate measure of safety performance.(Refer to the paper on this topic under articles on ohschange.com.au)
Personal Damage Occurrence Investigation Models
I have been exposed to a number of investigation models-Root cause analysis, Tripod, I.C.A.M., Tap Root and A.R.T.T. Of the above the author has found A.R.T.T. (Analysis Reference Tree Trunk) the most useful. This method was developed by Brisbane OHS consultant, Geoff McDonald.
Essentially the personal damage occurrence is represented by a tree-trunk lying on the ground, at the end of the tree-trunk you have Person elements, Machine elements and Environment elements, along the length of the tree-trunk you have 6 time zones and the annular or growth rings of the tree represent a number of Ergonomic elements. Instead of looking for “causes” you look for “essential factors” ( An essential factor is one without which the final personal damage could not have occurred) There are good reasons why the term “cause” is not used. The idea is to look for essential factors where the various categories of the model above intersect.
The model is very easy to use and usually at least 30 essential factors will be found in each personal damage occurrence. The author hears good reports on training in this technique conducted by Intersafe.
American author Ted Ferry has written publications that provide practical, how to advice on this topic. Readers may find the advice on an investigation kit in Accident Investigation on ohschange.com.au of benefit.
Analysis of “Accident” experience
Many organisations analyse their “Accident” experience in the hope of gaining insight into how to prevent their problems. Most organisations will not have sufficient serious “Accident” experience to make statistically significant determinations.
1.Damage to people at work has a number of adverse outcomes:-
- Financial loss to employer, worker and community
- Pain and suffering
- Dislocation of lives
- Permanence of death
2.Damage to people from work falls naturally into one of three Classes.
Class I damage permanently alters the person’s life and subdivides into
-fatal
-non fatal
Class II damage temporarily alters the person’s life
Class III damage temporarily inconveniences the person’s life (Geoff McDonald & Associates)
Taxonomy
This is an incredibly simple technique that it is rare to find used. Essentially a taxonomy is a collection of like. The most well known taxonomy is the phylum of plants, their botanical names.
Awhile back I was associated with a taxonomy of the more significant personal damage occurrences in the Qld mining industry which I thought was particularly effective in setting priorities for the industry. It is important to do the taxonomy on an industry basis as it is unlikely even the big companies will have enough of the more serious events to be able to develop statistically significant determinations.
The Qld mining industry has a standard personal damage occurrence report form that is sent to the inspectorate. The hard copies of the forms were obtained and sorted into like, ie the spinal column damages caused by driving a haul truck were put together ,the spinal column damage caused by lifting gas cylinders were put together, the eye injuries caused by grinding were put together and so on. The personal damage occurrences were then examined for their frequency, severity and the essential factors (An essential factor is one without which the final damage could not have occurred) This process gives insight into where your principal problems are occurring and guides preventative action.
In these days of computerised data systems I still feel it is necessary to go back to the original hard copy or a scanned in copy.
Examination of personal damage occurrences on an industry basis can provide meaningful insight into your safety problems.
Access to earthmoving equipment
A highly practical safety project in the early 1990’s was the Access to Earthmoving Equipment project. Work required included:
- Carrying out a literature review;
- Thorough statistical analysis of company accident data
- Developing a check-list to assess access systems;
- Field assessment of access systems
- Discussing access requirements with maintenance and operational personnel;
- Designing and installing prototype access modifications;
- Assessing the adequacy of the prototype modifications;
- Developing access purchasing specifications and maintenance guidelines; and
- Providing written guidance on desired characteristics of access systems.
- Presenting to industry forums in Qld. W.A. & N.S.W.
Through the employer association we successfully applied for Federal Government funding to extend the original research work by further research by an ergonomist / mechanical engineer. Thorough statistical analysis of Qld mining industry accident data was the starting point. This work provided significant input into the writing of an Australian Standard for "Earthmoving Equipment Access” and subsequently much earthmoving equipment in open-cut Australian mines now have hydraulically operated access arrangements.
The focus of this work was the large earthmoving equipment used in open-cut mining but the lessons are equally applicable to smaller earthmoving equipment and the back of trucks.
This research developed an industry manufacturing and developing earthmoving equipment access systems. With the passage of time this work is not well known in the mining industry nowadays, whilst the work has significant application outside the mining industry few will be aware of it.
I can supply further information if necessary,
Geoff was a driving force in this work.
Critical Incident Recall
Many organisations will tell you they report near misses or critical incidents. My advice is unless you have organised processes in place to surface near misses or critical incidents you will only hear about a fraction of them.
Critical incident recall is an awesome technique particularly suited to high risk environments. The technique will not work unless there is a climate of trust created between management and workers. Communications must be open & honest and managers and supervisors must be prepared to put up with a lot of criticism and not react defensively. In the interests of getting to the truth there must be no disciplinary actions. The senior department manager must be prepared to put his reputation on the line. The potential for some to push industrial issues is high with this technique, open & honest communication and a determination to improve will defuse this.
Neither management or workers will be prepared to commit to the work required in this technique unless there is a general realisation that problems exist.
What was done
All department members attended a short learning session where the Person, Machine, Environment concepts were explained. If I was to do this again I would include a case study of a complex class 1 personal damage occurrence to bring out the principles. The process they would go through was explained.
Some department members were trained as critical incident participant observers and observed what was happening in the workplace, some department members were trained as critical incident interviewers and interviewed their workmates. It was essential that those chosen for these tasks were trusted by the workforce. The identified critical incidents were communicated to management.
It was planned to let the above process go for 6 months but after a short period of time the frequency and severity of the critical incidents set the alarm bells ringing.
Based on the identified critical incidents a questionnaire was developed and all department members were asked to complete it in a series of meetings.
Responses to the questionnaire were collated and displayed on histograms
In what was a very brave move considering the industrial climate the senior department manager led a series of meetings with the workforce where he displayed the histograms and asked for feedback on reasons why the responses were the way they were. The manager was advised that no matter how severe the criticism he was not to react defensively. In these circumstances if a senior person is criticised severely you will usually find someone in the work group will come to his rescue if he is being fair dinkum, if that does not happen the facilitator can come to his rescue.